OK, time for that long awaited update.
Well, It's got salt water in at last, and most of the rock. At present most of the surface rock sits right at the water surface at the lowest tide mark, but I'm going to be adding a few more select flat topped /plating pieces that will stand well clear of the water in the near future.
Heres some teaser shots.
3/4 low tide with upper rock just below the surface.
As you can see, there's 'alot' of flow going on, especially at the surface, hopefully it should allow me to try some high energy corals like A.humilus etc in the most turbulent areas.
Just to give some idea of the amount of flow going on.
Breaking the surface.
Some of the upper rock is just exposed at lowest tide (more to be added). with large areas also available for coral placement that rest just 10mm or so below the surface with turbulent flow across them.
Tester coral sitting in just a cm or so of water.
Main tank at the start of the tidal phase with just a couple of inches of water gone from the main display. It takes approximately 3 hours to reach lowest tide, and 3 hours to return before connecting back up and overflowing to the sump.
And just in case you were wondering...
The plunger is built, It works, and its plumbed in. (although admittedly I need to stiffen the base plate)....theres so much force exerted between the motor and rocker arm pumping that piston up and down, the base plate is flexing which I'm not happy with at all, so a couple of solid acrylic 25x25mm strengthening bars are going to be bonded across the top of it to get rid of this problem.
The other job i need to do, is make a cover box for the motor to protect it from the worst the tank can throw at it.
As you can see, I had to make the body quite tall to allow for the variable water level which rises and falls with the tank during tide changes. (the level in the body at this point, shows the tank at low tide)
Now you know why i needed the silly sized Tap.
12vDC variable speed Motor and gearbox seems well up to the job. During testing at half speed (
I didn't want to crank it right up because of the base plate flexing) it was delivering a full wave front to back that was 4" at the back of the tank and 2" at the front, and that was against all 4 sequences running.
So basically, thats where things stand.
Everything is running fine (bar the need to mod the plunger slightly before I'm happy to run it fully unattended) so its just a case of letting it all settle down and seeing where it all takes me...success or oblivion..
Next job is to build the seagrass tank and a selection of frags in to see what copes with exposure and what wont.
When i get 5, I'll put up a HD video on Youtube.
Regards and happy reefing to all.....
